This is the official blog of ex-Sgt Ellie Bloggs. I was a real live police constable then sergeant for twelve years, on the real live front line of England. I'm now a real live non-police person. All the facts I recount are true, and are not secrets. If they don't want me blogging about it, they shouldn't do it. PS If you don't pay tax, you don't (or didn't) pay my salary.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Shake My Hand!

Today a scrawny drug user was so grateful to me for taking down a record of his confession that he offered a sweaty palm for me to shake. Unfortunately it is against my religious beliefs to contract Hepatitis, so I declined, mumbling a made-up tale of an infested house I had visited earlier.

There are other categories of hand I will not shake...

Blood-stained ones.

Filthy ones.

Ones soaked in an unidentifiable substance.

Mad people's.

Drunk people's.

Stoned people's.

Those of people who fought me earlier and now want to apologise.

Those of people who have a history of snapping police officer's hands off.

Those of people who have a history of alleging that police officers have tried to snap their hands off/sexually assaulted them.

Limp ones.

Sweaty ones.

Those of people whose houses I am about to search/have just searched.

... and circumstances in which I will not shake a hand:

During a fight (you know, when some passing drunk thinks you want to say hello whilst restraining another passing drunk).

Following a fight.

Following a foot-chase.

Just prior to a fight or foot-chase.

After searching a house/person.

When tired.

When cold.

When about to arrest someone.

When about to arrest someone's child.

On releasing someone from custody who has been there for drugs/sex/alcohol/urination/assault/abusive language.

I am surprised that Sir Ian Blair is so aggrieved by a PC not wishing to shake his hand this week. Did he ask himself if it was for any of the above reasons? Surely he must be used to people not liking him.

The real issue is whether this officer is willing to go hands-on with people she has to, not her self-important chief.

As seen below, not everyone is in the mood for handshaking even when they have to:

Handshakes have always been controversial.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Copyright of PC Bloggs.

This is all getting 'out of hand', sorry, no pun intended (again), but I am extremely worried about where this is going. 'Grip 'n Grin', is an extremely lucrative paying aspect of this snappers work, boring yes, but a couple of hundred notes for an hour or so with The Institute of Management Accountants, a ham sandwich and a lager, well, I can handle that. So I hope the handshake ritual isn't going to go Tango's up. I would have to find something else to fill the gap and er, 'grease the palm', sorry no pun intended.....

Even when I was first interviwed for the Met, we were warned not to shake the interviewers' hands...in case they had cultural reasons for not doing so. Got the exact same habit drilled into us at Hendon too.

A HANDSHAKE IN BRITISH CULTURE IS, HAS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE A MARK OF RESPECT, FRIENDSHIP AND TRUST. TO IGNORE IT IS RUDE, OFFENSIVE AND DOWNRIGHT DISRESPECTFUL, to anyone, but ESPECIALLY TO YOUR BOSS.Is there anyone out there who can tell me the Muslim Faith is so inflexible as to offer handshakes and really mean it? this smacks of a yet another orchestrated media strategy just like the Isreali Embassy debacle!"

I don't likr the Commisioner for at least a dozen reasons, but I'd never refuse his hand, "respect the rank not the man....."